


ç'est la vie à Corval

by firetan



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Aamir (mentioned), Backstory, Drabble, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Nonbinary Character, Possible Spoilers, Zarad (mentioned), but just like lowkey assassination attempts, but probably not, excessive use of silk, it's mostly about the parties and candles, other original characters mentioned too, parties candles and maybe the occasionally assassination attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:22:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8638570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetan/pseuds/firetan
Summary: When you really get down to it, Esmeralda liked to think, life in Corval wasn't really all that bad. Sure, the assassinations were a bit of a downer, and eventually you got a little tired of the parties, but in the end that's no big deal. Corval's actually pretty neat.It would be nice if it could be neat for the new Princess too.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dumb Luck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8584174) by [Nekochi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekochi/pseuds/Nekochi). 



**_"You better bring your own sun,  
sweet girl."_  
(Welcome to England, Tori Amos)**

**\---------------------------------------**

Kite couldn't quite remember the first time someone had asked them to throw a party. They knew it was after they first started helping their mother plan parties for the Inner Court, but before they realized that they weren't a 'her' or a 'she' or even a girl. That narrowed the age range to somewhere between seven and nine, which made about as much sense as anything else ever did in the Court of Corval.

That first party, of course, hadn't been spectacular - a celebration for the birthday of the youngest prince. Kite hadn't actually been ranked high enough to attend the party, but they had planned and organized it and even done some of the decorating. The criss-crossing draperies across the windows that had painted the room with an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of colors had been a point of particular pride, even though they heard later that someone had gotten stuck in the fabric. Still, they also heard that the changing colors had successfully thwarted one of the prince's many would-be assassins, so someone getting a bit tangled really didn't put too much of a damper on the achievement.

From that point, Kite had really begun to emerge into the realm of Court Affairs (and yes, that warranted the capital letters because everyone made an obnoxiously big deal of them), something that both pleased and concerned their mother.

Every year, someone would ask Kite to plan a party for them, and every year Kite would think themself in circles figuring out some new and interesting scheme with which to bedazzle the Inner Court into possibly protecting them and their mother just a bit more. One party had been held entirely on floating platforms in one of the Emperor's largest ponds. Another had involved catching hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies and handing them out to partygoers in woven baskets, from which they were released once night had fallen. Their crowning achievement, however, was the welcoming party thrown for Prince Aamir's new bride, an Arlish Princess he had matched with at the Seven-Year Summit.

By that time, Kite was twelve years old and refusing to go by 'she', and when the missive arrived that they would be in charge of the welcome party, it found them in gauzy trousers and white-bandage chest bindings as they were practicing aerial silks in the garden of the house where they lived with their mother. 

It was a suitable shock, of course. Parties for natives of Corval was one thing, but a welcoming party for a foreign princess? It wouldn't do to be strictly Corvali, of course, what an absurd notion - Kite would need to read up on Arlish traditions, as well as call in a few favors to learn more about this princess specifically. Not to mention they would need to make the party especially secure - though they'd had their fair share of assassination attempts since they started making a name for themself, the foreign princess would be quite possibly the biggest target since the princes themselves, and Kite wasn't about to let Aamir's new wife be killed at a party they had planned. (What a scandal that would be!)

So Kite set to planning. They snooped and asked, dodged two poisoned cups of chai while discovering that the Princess - whose name was apparently Constance, what a strange thing to name a child - preferred to drink Earl Gray, and deftly avoided a would-be-kidnapper when an idea struck them in the middle of a horseback excursion and they had to gallop full-speed back home in order to write it down before the thought deserted them. Butterflies, they could use butterflies! But not real ones, no - they would have to make them, so Kite set about to ordering bundles and bundles of shimmery, gauzy silks and spools of fine metal thread and the thinnest, straightest light-as-air lengths of bamboo they could find. 

But just butterflies wouldn't do, of course, so they'd need to make flowers as well. And to make the flowers stand out, well, of course they should just put a candle inside! It would need to be set in glass, of course, and gemstones hanging from the flowers' stamens would highlight the glow - Kite wrote all these things down, and sent out more orders for glass and beads and quartz gemstones and the most heavenly-scented beeswax available.

Sure, it was expensive, but this was a princess they were talking about!

When the day of the party arrived, Kite made a point of seeking out the Princess themself in order to help her prepare for the event. It took a bit of searching, but at last they found the quarters where Princess Constance was staying until her wedding. They only had to knock three times before the door was opened and they found themself face-to-face with a lovely young woman whose hair was such a deep black it almost shimmered blue in the light.

"Princess Constance? I'm here to help you prepare for your Welcome. May I enter?"

The young woman - Constance - inclined her head elegantly and held the door further open for Kite to enter. As soon as they were seated, however, and Kite was opening the large chest they had carried down the hallways balanced on their head, they began speaking again. 

"First lesson - don't believe anything anyone tells you, and trust nobody. I could have easily been an assassin, and you just let me into your quarters without questioning me or my intentions." They reach into the chest to pull out a number of differently colored butterflies, holding them up to the light and comparing them to Constance's fair skin and dark locks, settling on a mint-green one to compliment the princess's eyes. "Luckily for you, I am what I seem, but that's a distinct rarity here in Corval. You will need to learn that nobody speaks the truth here. If you need help, you can call on my mother and I. Do not trust your husband-to-be or his family with your secrets or safety." 

"I-- yes, I understand, but--" Constance narrowed her eyes slightly, brows furrowed in confusion, "If you are not here under dubious orders or intentions, then what is your purpose? You're not a servant, so there is no reason for you to be attending to me."

Kite shrugged, flicking dark red hair over their shoulders with a practiced motion and shaking it out of their eyes as they laid out matching accessories for the mint-green butterfly. "Second lesson - we have a hierarchy. The lower members of the Court do, on occasion, attend to those at the top. Soon enough, you'll have an entourage all your own." They replaced the un-used butterflies back in the chest. "To answer your question, I'm here to prepare you because I am the one who organized and designed the Welcome Party, and I would disappoint most of the Court - not to mention myself - if I didn't organize and prepare you appropriately as well."

"You organized it?" And here a look of recognition entered Constance's eyes. "So you're Lady Esmeralda, then. You're younger than I expected - about my dear sister's age, perhaps."

Kite winced as they pulled lengths of patterned and dyed silk from the chest. "I go by Kite, here. And do not doubt me - I've been doing this for many years. I have organized parties for the Emperor's own family."

"Yes, Aamir told me about the part you threw for his brother's twelfth. Didn't someone get caught in the cloth?"

They raised an eyebrow, deftly sorting through the silks to lay out a set of four within a blue-green color range. "Choose two of those - you're going to wear them around your hair and your shoulders - and someone did, but the colors also managed to thwart an assassination attempt, which I personally consider to outweigh some minor Lord getting a bit tangled."

"I see." Constance surprised them by chuckling softly. "A great feat indeed, then. Very well, Lady Kite. I leave myself in your capable hands."

It was Kite's turn to chuckle. "I am honored. If you will allow me, I will accompany you to the Welcome, and teach you how to see movement in the shadows and find people's hidden intentions while wearing a painted smile. On the surface, this is just a party, but underneath the frills and frivolities it is an initiation into the Court of Corval - and we all know just how dangerous the Court can be, don't we?"

"I suppose we do."

Once Constance was bedecked in a lovely gown with the wide skirts and long sleeves of Arlish fashion, but the flowing silks and softly jingling bangles of Corvali couture, with a gauzy scarf draped around her head and shoulders and pinned in place with a set of sea-green gems and a large, bamboo-and-silk mint-colored butterfly with sparkling quartz gems glittering in its wings, Kite arranged themself in the garb of a lady-in-waiting and escorted the Princess to the venue they had chosen.

The large room opened along one wall to an expansive garden, in which a quantity of butterflies were fluttering around lazily, flying between the hanging silks that framed the opening as a passing breeze rang the wooden chimes hanging from the eaves. Inside, silks were draped across the ceiling, and hanging on micro-thin threads of gold and silver were more bamboo-and-silk butterflies, along with bamboo-and-silk flowers with miniature beeswax candles suspended beneath them in etched glass cups. The light from the candles caused the gems and beads woven into the creations to glitter and throw light about the room like stars. Small standing-height tables were place around the edges of the room, larger beeswax candles molded and dyed to take on the appearances of native Arlish flowers lit and glowing in the center of some, while the centerpieces of others were large etched-glass bowls filled with water, in which smaller flower-shaped candles floated above a bottom layer of multicolored glass beads.

Also near the edges were low couches, each of which had been carefully decorated with further bamboo-and-silk creations. It was to one of these that Constance was lead, and through most of the night Kite perched next to her, bringing drinks and food and whispering a constant stream of information and advice to the older woman as lords and ladies came up to greet the new Princess. Some brought genuine welcome and praise, some came looking for information and ways to manipulate, and some came bearing poisons and hidden knives, and only the bright green eyes of the red-headed waiting-lady by Constance's side headed them off.

As the night wore on, the candles began to burn out and the guests migrated outside, where a wide blanket had been spread on the lawn under the stars. Woven baskets of fireflies rested beside the blanket, and each guest was instructed to pick one up and, once they found a seat on the blanket, release the fireflies within. It was a repeated motif, but Kite had felt that it would fit with the theme and provide a lovely and calming ending to the event. That way, the guests and Princess sat on the blanket and watched the fireflies spiral into the night until they eventually blended in with the glittering stars.

"I don't know how you do it." Constance murmured as Kite escorted her back to her temporary quarters, one pale olive hand resting against her temple. "How you can see under people's smiles so deftly."

It only took Kite a moment to reflect on the years of practice they'd enduring. The years of parties, of snide words whispered behind backs, of a snake slipped into their blankets and a bouquet of Sleep Spore left on their desk in the height of summer. On the people they'd seen killed - Lady Tabitha, her morning tea poisoned after she refused to cease protecting the young Wellish Earl she had been fostering; Lord Vaylin, who hadn't allowed his daughter to be stolen away to be the Emperor's fourth wife, stung by a scorpion in his sleep and tortured by poison for hours until he finally died; Miss Gracie, just a young girl, who had accidentally seen a Lady of the Inner Court in an adulterous affair with her servant and later been found drowned in a pond. They remembered the death threats tucked under their windows, the roving eyes that followed them down the hallways, the poisoned dart that had struck their mother's maid as she was cleaning when an assassin mistook her for her mistress.

It only took a moment for them to remember all these things, but once they had they turned to look at Constance with a wry smile and gently lifted the scarf from the Princess's long, dark hair, plucking out the butterfly and placing it firmly in Constance's hands and wrapping her fingers around it with their own.

"Because, Princess, that's just the way of life in Courts. Once you get used to it, it really isn't too bad."

Kite smiled then, a smile that was half dangerous and half gentle.

"Welcome to Corval, Princess Constance."

**Author's Note:**

> So I read Nekochi's fic Dumb Luck and I couldn't breathe from laughing and was lowkey inspired to write a one-shot about a bit of my own favorite Court Lady's backstory in Corval (although Kite's infamous for an entirely different reason than Tyra). I literally just wrote this tonight in one go, don't judge me please.
> 
> Un-beta'd, so please don't judge if I miss a few things!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please leave a comment if you like it! <3


End file.
